


Lying to Find the Truth: Jesse Porter Versus Michael's Team in Burn Notice

by merryghoul



Category: Burn Notice
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Community: hc_bingo, Gen, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Implied/Referenced Kidnapping, Implied/Referenced Torture, Meta, Meta Essay, Nonfiction, Season/Series 04, Season/Series 05, Season/Series 06, Season/Series 07
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-04
Updated: 2014-08-04
Packaged: 2021-02-22 00:47:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22606627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merryghoul/pseuds/merryghoul
Summary: Meta essay focused on Jesse Porter and his relationship with Michael’s team between seasons 4 and 7.
Relationships: Michael’s Team (Burn Notice)
Collections: Hurt/Comfort Bingo - Round 5, March Meta Matters Challenge





	Lying to Find the Truth: Jesse Porter Versus Michael's Team in Burn Notice

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from [a quote](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/133728-i-guess-sometimes-you-have-to-lie-to-find-the) from [Extras.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extras_\(novel\))
> 
> Done for HC Bingo in 2014. Prompt was “skeletons in the closet.”

Imagine working in intelligence. You like your job and you're taking advantage of your job to figure out a mystery that's been haunting you for years. After screwing up once in the field, you're given another chance in counterintelligence. Then your second chance is taken away from you from circumstances you don't understand. You team up with people who have a reputation of fixing problems on the sly to get your job back. But there's a twist: _they're_ the ones that cost you the job. This is what Jesse Porter has to deal with in the fourth season of _Burn Notice,_ when he's first introduced in the series.

When Jesse was nine and living in Atlanta, his mother, a convenience store clerk, was murdered. "She was working the graveyard shift," he says to Madeline in "Made Man." "[K]iller ran off with less than 50 bucks. And she bled out on the floor. There was people watching from the parking lot, too. Nobody did anything...[B]y the time the cops got there, she was dead." This is the traumatic event that shapes Jesse's life. He doesn't want people to go through life like he did—having a loved one taken away from them from people no one can find. He's determined to get justice for those who have been wronged.

He carries around two mementos that remind him of his mother. One is a well-kept picture of his mother. The other is a [Saint Christopher's medal](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Christopher#Medals) that belonged to her. Jesse says Saint Christopher is the patron of "safe passage" to Madeline before adding "[My mother] had a thing about keeping us protected." He risks his life to get the pendant even though he knows his apartment is being watched by his enemies after his burning.

Jesse started his intelligence career "in the field." He saw some horrifying things while in the field, like a woman being assaulted by her boyfriend. Jesse retaliated against said boyfriend, against what his superiors told him to do. Afterward, Jesse was transferred to counterintelligence. (Which isn't how getting into counterintelligence works, but this show never realistically dealt with anything involving US intelligence agencies. Shh.)

Jesse spent eight years in counterintelligence, working for the "Defense Department" (which probably is, but not stated in the canon as, the United States Department of Defense). Jesse arrived in Miami a year before Michael burned him. He found a pattern with illegal weapons being shipped into the country from Algeria. He was able to trace the pattern to one man he code named "Cobra." It's later revealed "Cobra" is a man named Jeremiah Kassar, and he's linked to the organization that burned Michael. And it's not just "Cobra." Jesse was working on other cases that were somehow linked to the organization. The organization couldn't have someone else unraveling their secrets. Why not use a spy who's desperate enough to do anything to get his job back to burn this threat to the organization?

* * *

We first see a glimpse of Jesse in "Friends and Enemies." Michael is forced by Vaughn, a person that works in the organization, to look for a illegal weapons supplier. This required Michael to sneak into a military facility to access a counterintelligence agent's files. And that counterintelligence agent is Jesse. Jesse's seen being arrested and taken into custody while Michael and Fiona watch from a distance in a parking lot.

In "Fast Friends," we learn Jesse has hacked a phone switchboard and has been calling his contacts, inquiring about who burned him. Jesse's just as capable as Michael when it comes to hunting down people and making improvised devices. Against Fiona's warnings, Michael sets out to look for him...but, at the same time, not get caught looking for him. Michael believes Jesse might know something about the organization.

Sam, Fiona and Michael haven't figured out how to explain to Jesse, if they ever meet him, about how Michael burned Jesse. They're all afraid of Jesse retaliating if he ever finds out. And Jesse promises to retaliate. "One day, the old bosses are gonna welcome me back," he says at the end of "Fast Friends." "They're gonna give me a commendation. I'll smile for the camera. But then I'm gonna find the person that ruined my life. And I'm gonna kill him."

When Jesse is set up and his life is put in danger by people who have a grudge with him, the game plan changes. Sam, Fiona and Michael set out to find Jesse and make sure he's safe from his enemies. But Jesse is clever enough to find Michael at his loft first. Jesse has no idea Michael burned him. Jesse's hoping Michael, because of his reputation solving problems that you can't go to authorities for, can help him find who burned him. That's when the team begins to start covering up Michael burning Jesse. They want to protect themselves from Jesse.

Jesse is kidnapped and almost killed, but Michael and his team are able to save him. Jesse is grateful for Michael saving his life, and mentions it often to the very people that know that Michael burned him.

After he's okay and he's given a place to stay (first in Fiona's apartment, then later at Madeline's house), Jesse gets involved in some of the team's jobs, whether they pertain to Michael's burn notice, whoever burned Jesse, or it's the Client of the Week. He believes in the same thing that Michael and the rest of his friends believe, to help someone out whenever they're in need. Unlike Michael and Sam (and somewhat like Fiona), though, he's impulsive. He'd rather do things as soon as possible than wait for the "perfect" opportunity.

Madeline is incensed at how Michael is withholding the truth to Jesse. Her conversations with Jesse while he's staying at her house drives her to the breaking point. Madeline's not a trained operative. In fact, she's been going to (and attempting to go to) therapy because of her relationship issues with Michael. She's not going to be okay with Michael withholding some big secrets from someone Michael hurt. But Michael thinks he's saving Jesse as well as his friends from certain doom by not telling Jesse the truth. Madeline doesn't buy Michael's excuses and demands he tell Jesse the truth. But Michael continues to lead Jesse along. He sees Jesse as an asset, not as a person. He never learned from the first time he led an asset along--when he first met Fiona in Ireland.

Madeline is the one person who's honest with Jesse before Jesse realizes Michael burned him. She's the one who tells Jesse Michael and Fiona are in a relationship in "When There's Smoke."

* * *

In season 3, Michael and Fiona made up and decided to go out with each other again. But Jesse thinks Michael and Fiona are about to split up again and that he might have a shot at dating Fiona. From an outsider's view, it seems like the two on on the rocks again. For instance, Fiona is jealous of Michael and Kendra, an assassin Michael and Fiona are looking for, talking over the phone. And Kendra is threatening Michael's life over the phone. Fiona's even offended Michael even mentioned grabbing Kendra and tying her up to a chair. (He wasn't going to do it.)

Even advice from Fiona, because of the team covering up Michael burning Jesse and Michael's relationship with Fiona, seems romantic to Jesse. Fiona advises Jesse to try to do something good with his life instead of trying to hunt down the person that burned him. And while it's true Fiona doesn't want Jesse to become almost like Michael, searching forever for the people that burned him, she also doesn't want Michael to get hurt. And yet she's still feeding the lie that Michael never burned Jesse. Her advice to Jesse falls on deaf ears, by the way: "I'm not stopping till the people that got me burned are six feet under," Jesse says to Fiona in "Past and Future Tense." "That's just what it is."

Because no one's told Jesse about the state of Michael and Fiona's relationship, Jesse starts to care for Fiona. Her kidnapping in "Where There's Smoke" upsets him to the point where he almost loses his cool with the Client of the Week. And he takes a kiss from Fiona—one made so the two don't blow a cover against a perp in "Blind Spot"—too much to heart.

* * *

Even though Michael and his friends try to cover up Michael burning Jesse, Jesse figures out Michael burned him. And although Jesse's hurt, he still is planning to go through with his original plan, killing everyone that burned him. Or so it seems like it at first. Jesse confronts Fiona with a gun in Michael's loft and tells her he knows the truth. Marv, his old handler, had some footage of Michael sneaking out of the government office Jesse was working in the day he was burned. Fiona thinks Jesse is going to shoot her, but she discovers he fled the loft as soon as she closed her eyes, expecting to be killed. It's the first of many times Jesse starts breaking his promise to kill everyone who's burned him. Fiona calls Michael after Jesse, warning Michael Jesse may be out to kill them all.

Jesse starts spying on Michael and his team while they're doing a couple of jobs, but his team is unable to catch up to Jesse before he flees. Jesse's trying to figure out if Michael and his team are good guys like they claim or if they're working for the organization. He's unable to determine this through his spying efforts.

The organization isn't interested in Jesse now that the files Jesse collected on them is in their hands. They know Michael and his team are interested, however. Vaughn first wants a Bible in exchange for getting Jesse his job back. The Bible in question has secrets about the organization. The team refuses to give Vaughn the Bible. However, the team accepts Vaughn's later offer for his information on where Jesse is staying after he leaves the team. (Jesse stays in a motel in [Hialeah](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hialeah,_Florida) under an assumed name. Although it's odd that Michael didn't think of looking into motels in the Miami area for Jesse. Before Michael made Jesse stay with Fiona, Jesse tells Michael he was considering staying in a motel for a while.)

Fiona gets sick of lying to Jesse in the episode "Past and Future Tense." After destroying some evidence that linked Michael to burning Jesse, she tells Michael how tired she is of hiding secrets from Jesse. "I can't stand watching you keep this secret like it's nothing!" she says to Michael near the end of the episode. "I can't stand what you're turning into...Someone who only cares about the idea of people. Who doesn't give a damn about the ones who have his back every single day."

She also feels bad about kissing Jesse—not because it was part of the cover, but she feels bad for lying about Michael burning him and making Jesse believe she had feelings for him. To atone for leading him on, Fiona schedules a meeting with Jesse. She brings Madeline along. Fiona knows Jesse likes and respects Madeline enough not to kill Madeline or Fiona in front of Madeline.

During the meeting, Jesse tells Madeline and Fiona how hurt he is for being lied to. And although it might not be the best way to apologize for a series of lies, Fiona tells Jesse that the team have all had their trust betrayed to at one point or another. Michael pretended to be Michael McBride to recruit Fiona into his job in Ireland before he had to be pulled out, and Sam reported Michael's activities to the FBI in season one before the FBI left Sam alone. Jesse doesn't buy Fiona's talk; he values honesty, and Michael and his friends weren't honest to him at the start.

Fiona tells Jesse that if he changes his mind about Michael and his friends, he can meet Michael at a diner by himself. And Jesse does change his mind. He meets Michael at the diner, where Michael tells Jesse about the job the team is pulling the next day. If the team succeeds at this job, it's possible Jesse can get his job back. Jesse's still upset about Michael destroying the work he put into investigating the organization; he says that he makes no promises about showing up for the job the next day.

Jesse doesn't show up with the rest of the team the following day, so the team proceeds with the job, which involves Michael being held captive by someone also very much interested in the Bible, John Barrett. Jesse reappears as the job is in progress. With a rifle, he takes out Barrett in his car--but injures Michael in the process, shooting him through the shoulder. But to the team's dismay, the information on the organization (the Bible as well as a list of burned operatives) is stolen in the resulting car crash.

This doesn't mean Jesse forgives Michael for lying to him—yet. Jesse goes to the hospital Michael's in to join the team again, but until the job involving the organization is done. "I'm gonna help you find this list 'cause it's the right thing to do and 'cause I want to have a say in what we do with it," Jesse says to Michael in "Eyes Open."

At first Jesse's not a willing team player. To get rid of a serial killer that's targeting Fiona (also in "Eyes Open"), he blows up her new house with the serial killer still inside of it—something Michael never wanted to do in the first place. (Michael even stopped Fiona from attempting to kill the serial killer herself.)

Fiona's lost house is the last straw for Fiona and Madeline. In "Hot Property," the two stage a intervention for Jesse and Michael at the team's usual meeting place, Carlito's, a fictional restaurant/bar. There, Madeline forces the two to work out their issues.

After this meeting, the two never have a serious falling out while Michael's team operates in Miami and occasionally in other parts of the US, Central and South America. Michael's team is able to find the documents that were stolen in Michael's car crash, and they're able to get Jesse's job back.

* * *

After season 4, the show sticks to two things: 1) Michael rounding up the people he's burnt...before having him kinda join the CIA and 2) Clients of the Week, which were phased out more or less by season 7. Some characters had some of their pre-series stories told on screen (like the Sam-centric _The Fall of Sam Axe_ TV movie or in "Forget Me Not," where the pre-series meeting of Michael and Fiona in Ireland, first told in the e-graphic novel series _First Contact,_ was recreated for TV), but the show's characters, aside from Michael, didn't have an expansive back story like Jesse did.

We do learn in season 5 that Jesse although Jesse has his old job back, he wasn't enthused about all the hoops he had to jump through to get it back for good. So instead, he takes work from a private security firm. He stays with the team, helping out with the team's jobs; in turn, the team helps him out with some of his jobs.

Jesse does get one more episode centered on his past. In "You Can Run," Jesse is captured by crooked CIA agent Olivia Riley. Riley will let Jesse go if Jesse agrees to give her information on Michael and his friends. Ever since Jesse's mother's death, he's been looking for the murderer. Riley has the files that will allow Jesse to learn about the identity of his mother's murderer. Instead of finding out his mother's murderer, Jesse refuses to help Riley. He's even horrified Riley is putting words in his mother's mouth, claiming his mother would want him to look for her murderer even if that meant betraying a friend. Staying loyal to family is what Jesse's mother wanted for him. Without a family, that meant Jesse had to look for his mother's murderer. And now that Jesse's family is Michael and his team, he doesn't need to search for his mother's murderer. He has what he's been looking for.

Jesse's introduction improves Michael's team in the long run. The team greets Jesse with fear, except for Michael, who's crazy enough to greet him with lies. They don't want to see Jesse as a human being; they view him as a threat. But as they get to know Jesse, they realize that Jesse is alone and he's looking for a family. And Michael's screwed up extended family is the best family for Jesse to be a part of.


End file.
